The Last Dinner Party score biggest Number One debut album in nine years

The Last Dinner Party have scored the biggest Number One debut album in nearly a decade with their breakthrough LP ‘Prelude To Ecstasy’.

• READ MORE: The Last Dinner Party: the newly-coronated monarchs of baroque-pop

News of the milestone was announced today by the Official Charts Company, who confirmed that the rising indie rock band had earned 32,800 chart units in just one week with their debut album.

It is the biggest opening week for a chart-topping debut album by a band in nearly a decade. Prior to this, it was Olly Alexander-led band Years & Years who also reached the milestone by selling 55,000 copies of their debut LP ‘Communion’.

Releasing ‘Prelude To Ecstasy’ last week (February 2), the five-piece – comprised of Abigail Morris, Lizzie Mayland, Emily Roberts, Georgia Davies and Aurora Nishevci – have also gone on to achieve some other impressive feats with the LP.

These include the album being the best seller in UK independent record shops this week, and going on to secure the Number One spot on the Official Record Store Chart. What’s more, it has become the biggest-selling vinyl record of the week too, selling over 14,000 copies – the highest figure since Oasis’ ‘The Masterplan’ reissue arrived in stores last November.

Elsewhere on the Albums Charts, Liverpudlian singer-songwriter Jamie Webster has secured his third Top 10 and highest-charting album to date with ‘10 For The People’, which arrived last week and is currently at Number Two, and several of Taylor Swift’s albums have re-entered the charts following her announcing ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ at the Grammys.

‘Prelude To Ecstasy’ was given a glowing four-star review from NME’s Sophie Williams, who described the album as containing “enough self-belief and magnetism to set them apart from what’s come before.”

“Some may choose to posit the band’s success as an antidote to the intense scrutiny – about their rise, appearance and decision to make music without a ‘serious’ intention – they’ve received in their early career. But take all of that away, and you’re still left with fantastic songs that are easy to embrace and return to. It’s hard to miss all the things they’re doing right,” it added.

The band are currently the latest cover stars for the January/February print issue of NME, and opened to us about the start of their career, as well as what sets them apart from the crowds.

“We took our sweet time releasing anything, which was somewhat intentional”, Davies said. “It was about the experience in its entirety, rather than instant recognition from singles.”

“We knew we were different from other bands doing the post-punk thing,” she continued, and Morris added. “We imagined the kind of joyful, exciting act we’d want to see when we go out, and created our own ‘dream band’ from that.”

In other Last Dinner Party news, earlier this week the group performed a moving  cover Troye Sivan’s ‘One Of Your Girls’ in the Radio 1 Live Lounge and went on to add three shows to 2024 UK and Ireland tour due to phenomenal demand.